Post Games:
Ghanaian food for lunch (prepared by the hotel, not
me). Then, nap time for me. Nap time lasted about 90 minutes. Then, the plan was to have dance practice and
get ready for the evening event.
Oh yeah, dance practice.
So, the planning committee decided that we should do a performance at
the end of the evening event and to kickstart the party. Obviously, this wasn’t a unanimous vote. But, being the gifted dancer that I am, I was
not that upset when the majority agreed to do a dance. The dances were to Uptown Funk (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPf0YbXqDm0)
- which I’m sure all readers have heard on the radio – and Shake Body (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qoUU4onORY). Given my proclivity to “feeling the rhythm,”
I’m pretty confident I looked just like the dancers in the second video.
Anyway, the plan was dance practice then get ready for the
evening event.
Unfortunately, lots of things were running on Ghana time
(i.e., not on time). As a result, dance
practice turned out to include helping finish setting up the venue and dealing
with other issues. Most notably,
power.
“Daniel, we have a problem.”
“Okay…”
“I’m being told by the technician that we don’t have enough
voltage”
“Like power?”
“Yes please. You see
the lights? They’re already going out”
“Okay, so who do I need to talk to?”
“The technician is over there”
“Yo, boss, I hear we have a power problem”
“Yes, someone should have talked to me!”
I then took a bit of berating for the next minute or so.
“Alright, well are there any solutions?”
“We can add another power source”
“Okay, lets do that then”
After talking to a few more people, power issue =
troubleshot.
Evening program:
In Ghana time, that means people started to arrive at 7PM
and dinner starts at 8PM. This actually
worked out well because while I was dealing with last minute items, I was still
in workout clothes. In fact, when people
were taking their pictures and selfies, you can find me in the background of
quite a few still in my work out clothes…an interesting contrast to the fancy
dress of everyone else.
But, like most events, everyone will have a good time
regardless of the little things that go wrong.
Obviously, I’m a little torn up that the drink umbrellas didn’t make it
out, but I don’t think it ruined the atmosphere.
As some readers may know, Ghanaians generally do not drink
alcohol. When budgeting for the party,
we assumed there were about 7 (out of 60 people) who would drink alcohol and we
bought beer/wine/liquor accordingly.
Part of that budget was 2 bottles of Johnny Walker Gold Label. Even among 7 people, that’s a decent amount.
At approximately 10:30, the bartender informs me that the
Gold Label is out. I tell him to open up
the second bottle and he informs me that is gone as well. I look around and none of the 7 drinkers are
passed out, so I tell him to get another one from the hotel bar.
At about 11, the bartender informs me that the Gold Label is
out, again. Now I’m starting to realize
that a lot of these non-drinking-Ghanaians are having a little extra fun. I go ahead and tell him to bring two more
from the hotel bar. Neither of which
made it home with us.
The whole evening lasted until about 1:30AM, and then Gabby
and I hosted an after party until about 3AM.
Since pictures are worth a thousand words, here’s a few
thousand-word essay on the rest of the events.
I will note that none of the pictures after 11:30PM (aka, after 5
bottles of whiskey) were shared amongst the group:
Me presenting Gabby with the Hardest Partier award
Video of dance done by Senior Managers:
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